Amy Wendt got a full makeover for our June HealthyLife cover-model shoot. Courtney Beck, a hair stylist at Kimberley’s A Day Spa in Latham, does many of our models’ hair, and she’s careful not to do anything so drastic that the model hates it afterward. With Wendt, Beck added highlights and reddish-brown color and a bit of a cut. And for style? Beck’s giving Wendt a side up-do, with delicate curls falling gently onto Wendt’s collarbone.

Wendt is a lifestyle coach for diabetes prevention at the YMCA in Guilderland, a job she absolutely adores. Before she started this job two years ago, she taught business classes to high schoolers. She liked that job too, but the gig at the Y brings Wendt much joy. She loves the challenge that comes with keeping her fitness classes interesting and engaging. “I read magazines and go online to look for ideas to keep my classes interesting,” she says. This switching-up of routines from class to class helps tone bodies in another way: “You get to surprise your muscles. They don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s called muscle confusion, and it works,” she says.

When she’s not working out and teaching classes, Wendt and her family — her son and daughter and husband — love to see musicals and plays, travel and they love going out for all kinds of different food. But today, Wendt is busy being our model, and she sits patiently as Beck puts the finishing touches on her hair and we move to makeup with Holly Mittan.

“I want to keep the makeup very neutral, with a pop of color or pastel,” Mittan says. Not only is that fashionable, the look complements Wendt’s brightly colored, springy outfits. We’re shooting at the New York State Museum today and there’s a carousel there our photographers have their eye on. A pop of color is exactly what we’re going to get.

When we finish makeup, we head over to the museum, where many rooms are filled with stuffed mastodons and bears, old relics of generations past and the artwork of contemporary and historic artists. We have Wendt pose in front of an old New York street sign and she climbs up on an old, early-20th-century car for more pictures. Then — the day’s highlight — we head to the carousel. Wendt hoists herself up on a horse and our photographer climbs on too, model and photo-taker both doing their work while spinning in carousel circles.